> we've been given the wrong advice for so long we just stopped listening.
Shouldn't we recognize that things change and life can be unpredictable? Rather than being jaded that every adult in our lives didn't have a magical crystal ball, maybe there are more productive things that can be done?
Gen Z & younger Millennials constantly get shit for blaming everyone else for everything always, and taking no responsibility or being accountable for their own actions...but I would argue that comments like the above aren't going to dispel that.
Maybe it reads different than it's intended, but a huge part of being an adult is adapting to an ever changing world and finding a path forward towards your goals.
(Edited to remove what could be perceived as a bit harsh..)
You expect kids to not heed the advice of the adults around them? And when those kids grow up to be adults and realize that the advice they were given was all bullshit to suddenly not see the utter waste of time and energy into worthless goals put before them their entire lives?
What are you talking about?
The main responsibility of adults is to prepare the next generation. Realizing that failure is not being jaded, it's confronting reality about the failures of adults.
> And when those kids grow up to be adults and realize that the advice they were given was all bullshit
You think the advice of going to college is "all bullshit"? It's still great advice for many people, is it not? I think the point is that it's certainly not for everyone, and because colleges aren't holding up their end up the bargain there are plenty of other ways to earn a living. Some people aren't cut out for the trades, just like some people aren't cut out for many paths available from college.
The harsh truth is just because you can get a degree in something doesn't mean you'll be any good at it, and ultimately if you're not any good at something why would you expect people to pay you money to do something poorly? So the real question is: at what point should young adults be responsible for recognizing their aptitude and interests enough to make their own career decisions without blaming others? 18? 21? 25? Never?
I'm not even sure that all of the advice--with some nuance applied--is even bad today.
STEM is not a great term in general given how broad it is. The pure sciences as a career path for someone with just an undergrad degree have not been that great since I was in school which was a long time ago. Those degrees can be parlayed into other things that are connected to the degree--or not. Pre-med was the historical reason a lot of people majored in biology or chemistry.
Engineering broadly is not a bad degree to have even if you don't ultimately work in the area you majored in; I only did so for about three years.
Nursing was never near the level of doctors in terms of compensation. But it has been pretty much middle class pay at the cost of what, to me, would be difficult working conditions.
If someone's good with sitting in an office and developing some appropriate skills for that, I wouldn't necessarily recommend the trades. But, if someone doesn't like school, book learning, etc. it seems a pretty reasonable option.
And there are degrees of things. Trades also includes working for things like construction engineering firms. Have a friend who didn't go to college but has worked in various roles of this sort. (My one real mechanical engineering job wasn't all that different in many respects at the end of the day.)
The original premise was that trades are where all the money is, and Gen Z should be listening to that. My point is that we were previously told: the money is in college degrees, the money is in STEM, the money is in nursing. And people invested a lot of time and money in taking that advice and it went nowhere. Then we were called stupid and foolish and entitled for believing that advice.
So why aren't Gen Z taking this magical advice on trades? Because they know older generations don't have a crystal ball, they've seen what happens if they listen to that crystal ball advice, and they're not falling for it. And if you talk to Gen Z, they have very little hope for the future, given we are doing very little to stop climate change, runaway capitalism, and they're watching jobs get automated without any change to the "cost of living" agreement when people are watching jobs disappear.
Boomers don't have to worry about any of that anymore. And there's nothing more tone deaf than Boomers giving advice on a world that no longer exists for younger generations.
> The original premise was that trades are where all the money is
Nobody has ever said the "trades are where all the money is". This premise is flawed already.
> My point is that we were previously told: the money is in college degrees, the money is in STEM, the money is in nursing. And people invested a lot of time and money in taking that advice and it went nowhere.
It still is. It sounds like too many people have deluded themselves into thinking college is a public jobs program and if they show up and get a piece of paper they will be the most in demand in those fields. However, that requires an illogical leap on their part to believe that any and every person in a field will be at the top of their field and thus command exorbitant salaries. It defies logic. Plenty of people still make good money in those fields, and still will years from now. But not everyone is entitled to make a ton of money in any fields their heart desires.
Everyone learns the law of supply and demand before adulthood, or if they haven't then they shouldn't be going to college anyway. So if the supply of labor in a field increases beyond the demand, what would we expect to happen?
Also, if you're really good at something people will generally pay you more than they'll pay people who are mediocre. Maybe the problem is younger generations can't wrap their heads around the fact that a lot of people are mediocre. Not everyone is special or a superstar or whatever, so maybe this egalitarian mindset is the issue.
This isn't boomer shit, I'm far too young to be a boomer. It seems like common sense. Is this not common sense?
> Everyone learns the law of supply and demand before adulthood, or if they haven't then they shouldn't be going to college anyway.
Yeah, the problem is that the "law of supply and demand" is a simple metaphor to help children gently begin learning economics, not how anything actually works. Almost no price any real person encounter anywhere in their daily life is actually determined in any meaningful way by "supply" or "demand" -- unless you stretch the definition of those two words so thin they're practically meaningless. They're potential factors, sure, but only small ones.
As one of a bajillion examples, see how every hospital is short staffed (low supply) and desperate for nurses (high demand), while we also see them constantly lay nurses off or reduce hours (and nursing has consistently-fixed low salaries, despite the shortages). Same for CNAs, nursing home staff, etc.
> no price any real person encounter anywhere in their daily life is actually determined in any meaningful way by "supply" or "demand"
Case in point.
> how every hospital is short staffed and desperate for nurses (high demand), while we also constantly law nurses off or reduce hours (and nursing has consistently-fixed low salaries, despite the shortages)
How many paying patients are they turning away on account of this supposed shortage?
There isn't a national nurse shortage. Nurses are being overworked. And in some regions, there are shortages, though that's out of an inability to pay traveling nurse rates.
> How many paying patients are they turning away on account of this supposed shortage?
That's not how it works. Generally speaking, any publicly funded hospital in the US must take patients by law, they can not turn away patients except under very specific circumstances.
> that's out of an inability to pay traveling nurse rates.
If you pay extra to import a nurse (traveling nurses) you remove them from the area they were previously. That's great, but it's not a fix for a shortage, that's just relocating the shortage somewhere else.
And, if they're short, why aren't they able to pay traveling nurse rates? Medical revenues are at an all time high, prices too. There's no reason a hospital couldn't pay higher nursing rates, they just choose not to, because again, that figure is not determined by supply or demand.
> any publicly funded hospital in the US must take patients by law, they can not turn away patients except under very specific circumstances
Not all nurses are employed at hospitals. I said paying patient, but I should have said deniable. Someone seeking out the sorts of care hospitals start denying when they face an actual emergency.
> everyone disagrees with you
Oh, I've seen the meme. I'm just casting it a bit more cynically. Nobody wants to pay nurses more. So we need more nurses, whether out of nursing school or through immigration.
> if they're short, why aren't they able to pay traveling nurse rates
They did [1]! When they needed them. Because there was demand for them. When there wasn't, they didn't.
> no reason a hospital couldn't pay higher nursing rates, they just choose not to, because again, that figure is not determined by supply or demand
This is how supply and demand work. They're not paying more because they don't have to.
"Common sense", "laws of supply and demand" imply kids probably shouldn't all rush to go be plumbers because it will decimate the pay and most of them will end up in poorly compensated jobs because on they are, on average, not special.
And wow, look, we're commenting on an article about how kids aren't rushing to go become plumbers so you're here saying what exactly?
Or did you just want to go on about kids-aint-shit and the die landed on joecot this time.
> imply kids probably shouldn't all rush to go be plumbers
Correct, every kid shouldn't go be a plumber. Kids who might enjoy being plumbers (or electricians, or HVAC etc) should know that they can earn a good living doing it, they don't need to rack up $60k in student loans to go to an out of state college to get a useless communications degree or whatever.
> everyone learns the law of supply and demand before adulthood, or if they haven't then they shouldn't be going to college anyway
People learn it, but I don't think many Americans actually believe it. Exhibit A is housing. Exhibit B is this bandwagoning effect around career choices.
Gen Z & younger Millennials constantly get shit for blaming everyone else for everything always, and taking no responsibility or being accountable for their own actions...but I would argue that comments like the above aren't going to dispel that.
Maybe it reads different than it's intended, but a huge part of being an adult is adapting to an ever changing world and finding a path forward towards your goals.
(Edited to remove what could be perceived as a bit harsh..)